BEREA The mood is always different when it's the game before Christmas.

Thoughts of seasons well played or long gone swirl together.

On Dec. 23, 2007, the Browns flew to Cincinnati knowing the ride home could be quite the party. Losing a battle that would have clinched a playoff spot left Browns fans with a hangover that still hasn't quit.

The game before Christmas in 2008 became Romeo Crennel's goodbye. A loss to the Bengals was his last at home before he got fired, scattering assistants such as Rob Chudzinski across the land.

Kansas City's defense was Santa Claus to Jerome Harrison the next year, when he went dashing through the Chiefs for 286 yards. Not even Josh Gordon has quite been there.

Eric Mangini's last road trip as head coach of the Browns was the game before Christmas in 2010, at Cincinnati.

The last of Josh Cribbs' 11 touchdowns as a Browns return man came on Christmas Eve, 2011, making a dreadful game at Baltimore merrier.

In a way, this year's game before Christmas is like the others. The season has been heavy, but moods are light.

One end is near, but it is as if something else soon will begin. The next journey ... the thought that the NFL is less high and mighty than it can seem.

The record is 4-10, but drudgery is taking a holiday.

Head coach Chudzinski, celebrating the arrival of his and his wife Sheila's fourth child, marched into the media room for his Wednesday press conference clutching a big batch of cigars.

In the locker room, six young players, none a sure bet to be on the team next year, gathered around a big flat screen at a vacant locker between the stalls of Quentin Groves and Barkevious Mingo. Two of them played a video football game while the other four watched.

Marqueis Gray, one of the many young players the new regime has experimented with — he gained 30 yards on two wildcat runs against Chicago — talked about home ... and backyard football in Indianapolis.

"I had two older brothers," he said. "One was a receiver. One was a DB. I was a quarterback. We always got into debates on who could catch or throw the best."

Joe Thomas asked the bosses for a really expensive present. He really wants them to re-sign center Alex Mack.

Brian Hoyer, some fans' idea of a happy new year, came through the locker room. He isn't talking about his rehab from knee surgery, other than to say it is going well.

Page 2 of 2 - He does look happy, and he is walking with a bounce in his step, for what that's worth.

The quarterback who will actually play the Browns' latest game before Christmas is Jason Campbell.

He has done this before. He began his career as a starter with Washington in 2006, playing at St. Louis on Christmas Eve.

"The years go by fast," he said. "It does seem like a long time ago."

Campbell has never spent Christmas time in New York. Not that he will now, even though the Browns' last game before the 25th of December is on the road against the New York Jets.

"We don't really get a chance to enjoy any festivities," he said with a festive smile. "We don't get to go see the big tree. We won't be going ice skating."

It's a work trip. Yet, as one thinks back over the past games at this time of year, as the faces and bearings of the coaches and players are observed now, a thought occurs.

Whatever the weather, whatever the record, this game comes but once a year.